Chamonix Event Review: 4th February 2014

The first runs of the day started at 9am, which meant an early start for those with lower numbered bibs, and a 20-30 minute hike across from the top of the Brevent cable car to get to the top of the competition zone. Tim Bowden from Echobase was one of the unlucky ones with an early start that morning, with bib no.9, that meant getting on the gondola at around 06:45...

The competition running order was mixed up (unlike the Freeride World Tour where you have all the snowboard men riding one after another, followed by all the ski men etc.) so you had a skier followed by a snowboarder, men followed by women and so on. There was a real mixed bag of nationalities in the competition, Russians, British, Swedish, Spanish, Kiwis, French, Swiss, Canadian, Italian, Slovakian and a mixed level of performance, partly perhaps due to the choppy snow and the number of rocks that were still apparently peppered about up towards the top of the competition area. 

The highlights for me watching were a number of competitors that pulled back-flips, one skier with a triple cliff drop, a couple of Swedes who were flying down the mountain so fast they didn't quite make it through the final finish gate and almost took it out in the process, two telemarkers, a 360 from Chris Charlet, a couple of boarders and skiers who went completely off-track and out of the competition zone at the bottom (GPS anyone?), and Rudy Collet who was going so fast on his skis I thought he wasn't going to be able to stop..

Andre Saudan who came second last year's snowboard men's competition took 4th place with 69 points, pipped at the post for 3rd place by Chris Charlet by only 1 point. Tim Bowden's early run on bib no. 9 saw him take 7th place with a score of 61 points - an improvement for him on last year's 10th place and 50 points. Clement Bochatay (FRA) scored the winning run with 80 points.

Fiona Smalley took 4th place again in the women's snowboarding and improved on her score from last year with 50 points. As predicted by Fiona, Anouck Mouthon was the one to watch in women's snowboarding, coming in 1st place with 65.3 points. 

Trace Cooke took first place in men's ski, with super-fast Rudy Collet in 7th position. Oli Allen (GBR) in bib #93 was the last man on the mountain and finished in 27th postition. In women's ski, Russian Anna Khankevich took 1st place with Brit Jessica Oundjian coming 4th overall. 

You'll find all the results from the adults and juniors competition in the link next to the photos on this page (including Snowboard men's results which seem to be missing from the Temmos website). 

If you want to follow more of the qualifiers, the next Temmos Freeride is taking place in Tignes on 8th & 9th Feb.